


Things that Were, Things that Are, Things that are To Come

by StrongerThanAnySword



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 00:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4242750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrongerThanAnySword/pseuds/StrongerThanAnySword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Past, present, and future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things that Were

His arms were the strongest, his chin the most chiseled.  His hair was a cascade of gold or something equally poetic; he was a court-poem in motion, all propriety and chivalry and levity.  His armor shone in the sun and Marianne thought it was lit from within, by a heart pure and full of love for the good things in life.  He was what made her worth something; his love told her that she could, indeed, be loved.  His gentle lips would brush her hand and nowhere else, ever concerned for her well-being and reputation, tied up into one as they were, tied up into  _him_ and _his_ reputation as they were.  

* * *

 

She was the flighty one, at least where Roland was concerned; Dawn had a better head on her shoulders at times, and people simply smiled and shook their heads.  She was in love, after all, and had always been a little unsettled.  After all, wasn't one of her best friends an Elf, a simple working-hand?  A trait she had passed on to Dawn, though Dawn kept her head about it (nobody stopped to consider that it was Dawn and not Marianne who had reached out to Sunny, that Dawn would have shifted the world for her oldest and truest friend).  Somewhere, though, she knew (or rather, didn't know).  She sensed the absence of something, of someone, and she shook her head and asked herself what she was possibly missing.  Landing on marriage, she was delighted when Roland asked not long after; she didn't realize that the particular pain, the particular emptiness she carried, was not to be filled by another but healed by herself.  She was to learn.

* * *

 

He was not much to look at; remarkable only because of his close friendship with the princesses of the realm.  He was short and stunted to the Fairies, silly and incapable of being serious to the Elves.  Though neither race claimed him as their own, the princesses and his family were enough for him; the joy they gave just by existing made his heart full to bursting with song.  Soon he was known as more than just the playmate to the Crown; he was the little Elf with the big voice, and those who approved were asking him to sing right and left.  Those who did not approve grumbled and crossed their arms and tried to hide their toe-tapping.  For all the way people would recognize him now, recognize him for _him_  (and that made him both uncomfortable and proud), he came to recognize that all he truly wanted was staring at him with a wide smile and blue eyes that beamed love at him from under a tuft of blonde hair.

* * *

 

She was the youngest and not much else.  As an heir but not the Heir Apparent, her role only came into focus if her sister met with an accident of some sort.  This was not something she ever thought much about; she was content to  _be_ , happy to bask in the sun or listen to the rain (from a safe distance indoors, thick walls all around) in equal measure.  Nothing pleased her in quite the same way that dresses and shoes and pins and buttons did, but the joy she felt in being a princess couldn't compare to the joy she felt in her sister, her father, and Sunny.  She was happy enough to muddy her skirts if she could spend the day with one or more of them, and she only regretted ruining the  _really_ nice ones--and though she never stopped to think about it, but she would happily have tossed all the clothing she owned into the mud if it meant spending her days with one in particular, who lit up her life and never failed to cheer her up.

* * *

 

He was lonely.  Not alone, but lonely all the same.  A kingdom and a crown, a castle and a court, could not fill the void left by his wife.  Not even two beautiful daughters, one as warm as the summer sun and the other as playful as the light spring breeze, could take her place, center stage of his heart.  His advisers advised a new wife, a new Queen; his doctors prescribed nannies for the princesses and a little more rest for him.  He could take neither option, becoming instead mother  _and_ father, king  _and_ queen.  His daughters flourished under his care, the kingdom prospered, and for all his joys the King of the Fields thought that he could be happy, truly happy, if only his wife were still alive.

* * *

 

She was lonely.  Not alone, but lonely all the same.  Her son was the light of her life, the very heart of her being, but he was not happy.  She thought that if he could find love, as she had found with his father, he could then be content, be the cheerful(ish) son she had once known and a proper King to his kingdom.  Of course, she acknowledged, with a true love and a true queen would come grandchildren, and she wished for dozens of them, but in her heart of hearts she knew that nothing would replace her own King, the one she missed so dearly.  She could be happy, she thought, if her son would only smile again, and she devoted all energy to that pursuit, not put off at all by his yelling, his pleading, his stone-faced silence.  If it was what she accomplished with her dying breath, she swore (to herself, where her son could not hear--she knew how hurt he was that he could not appease her, even if he never said), she vowed that she would find someone worth her son's time--and his heart.

* * *

 

He was unlike, and unloved, and unwanted.  He was the Crown of the Forest, the Regent of all the light could not or dared not touch, and yet the only emotion he could feel with any degree of consistency was rage, rage well-used to keep his subjects in line.  His mother pushed and shoved at him to _hurry up and get married already_ _to **someone** , anyone,_ and the idea made his insides draw together as if they were being crushed in a giant fist, a sick taste rising into his mouth (and worse than it may have been because of his previous venture into the area of  _love_ ).  No, he decided, he was better off without it--and so was everyone else.  Had he known what his neighbors thought of him--dark, ugly, and fearsome--he would never have argued, but if he was given the opportunity, he might have told them that he was doing them, doing everyone, a favor.  The opportunity never came, and he never asked for it; he just kept ordering the primroses be cut down, burned, and scattered to the winds.

 


	2. Things that Are

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the betrayal, before the kidnapping.

The idea of him makes her want to vomit.  He's still chiseled, still strong, still golden and green.  The worst part, however, is that she still loves him.  For all his lies, for all the hurt he caused her, she still loves him with everything that she is.  Part of her does want to go back, to grant him forgiveness the next time he begs.  She tells herself she is holding out for Dawn; she needs to teach Dawn that if someone hurts her, she should never ever give them a second change.  In reality, there is still pride there--even after being shown so succinctly that she is neither needed nor wanted, some part of her believes (or at least desperately wants to) that she deserves better.  She prays that someday he will be as ugly on the outside as he is within.  For now, though, every time she sees his face or hears his name is like another tiny cut in her heart; she is slowly bleeding out, and God, she needs something to change.  

* * *

 

She is still the flighty one, but in an entirely different way, more prone to bouts of anger than to singing or daydreaming.  When her heart was broken, it left a massive jagged hole, and she has not bothered to smooth the corners out one bit.  Let people cut themselves if they get too close.  She has neither desire nor need for closeness.  All she wants is to protect her younger sister.  From enemies, from liars and cheats, from any and every source of danger.  Her new attire reflects this perfectly, marking her as more a warrior and less a princess; it is her mask, her suit of armor, and she faces each day with it firmly in place.  Her subjects still shake their heads when she passes, but there is no smiling now.  They see their princess as cold and hard, and at least one person in each group will wistfully ask what happened to their happy summer princess, always warm and ready to laugh and sing.  She pretends not to hear them and curses herself for caring what they think.

* * *

He spends more time with Dawn now.  She frequently hides from her hovering older sister, and he can't say he blames her.  Something really bad  _must_ have happened the day of the wedding, to have altered Marianne so much.  While he is happy to spend more time with Dawn, his heart aches for both of them.  Dawn misses her sister terribly and doesn't know what to do to get her back; Marianne clearly still loves her, still cares, but her arms remain at her side instead of outstretched and her eyes avoid her sister's, ever the faithful guard.  It's stifling, and Sunny wishes he knew how to tell Marianne that, but whenever he tries to build up the courage to meet her eyes, he sees...something, something he doesn't understand.  He focuses on his singing, bringing a smile to Dawn's face when he can, wishing he could do something more.

* * *

She is older now, looking at all the men around her with a giggle and a little wave, enjoying her life as she flutters through it.  Nobody thinks much of her; she's a silly, simple girl.  Yet she sees much more than anyone thinks she does.  Her eye pierces Marianne's shields, seeing clearly how hurt she was and still is.  She sees how kind Sunny is to her (though there are some things even she cannot see), she sees how horrible Roland is through Marianne's eyes and quietly disapproves of their father's attempts to put the pair back together.  She sees all of this, but she is still a young girl, and she takes her time growing up because it is her right, and she has faith that all will come to a happy end, even if she does not know how.

* * *

He doesn't understand.  He doesn't understand how to keep Dawn from throwing herself at every boy within a ten-foot radius, he doesn't understand what happened between Marianne and Roland, but most of all he doesn't understand the distance between his eldest daughter and him.  He wishes he knew better; he wishes his wife was still alive.  Perhaps she would have had some stunning insight?  Perhaps his daughters would be calmer, more together, less...unhappy.  For that is what he sees in them: unhappiness in Dawn, wanting to fill the void with the opposite sex; unhappiness in Marianne, wishing to create a void where no one can enter.  He doesn't know what to do, and God, he needs something to change.

* * *

She is still lonely, and growing more worried by the day.  While she holds no truck with primroses, it still pains her to see them cut down.  They are not simply raw ingredients; they are a symbol, a sign of something sacred.  Bog's ban on the love potion is truly a ban on love; they are one and the same.  The whole Forest bows to his will but she won't see it continue any longer.  She begins dropping hints, then asking questions, but her patience runs thin and she is quickly bringing a girl to tea here, a couple to dinner there.  Soon she is searching out any and all females; any who has even the slightest chance of bringing a smile to her son's face and lifting the heaviness from his heart.

* * *

He is quickly growing driven to distraction.  If he thought his mother was pushing him before, he was absolutely wrong.  It seems he can't turn around without tripping over the latest lady (or dozen of ladies) that his mother is forever dragging to the castle.  He is still ordering the primroses cut down and burned, still using his anger to his advantage, but slowly the pain and the anger are becoming all he can feel--he counts himself lucky when he does feel them, for the gnawing emptiness that replaces them now and again is somehow worse.  Like a night sky without stars or moon, he can feel himself growing cold and empty, but he simply shoulders it.  He has a kingdom to run and primroses to cut...but God, he needs something to change.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Things that Are to Come

Roland sought something that was never held in the arms of love, or so he thought. He sought honor and glory and bloodshed, and the bliss he was looking for does not live there. It lives in love, whatever that love may be made of or for, true love that seeks the betterment of self and the benefit of someone else. That, of course, is exactly what the undeserving Roland will find. Her name is a melodious buzz that rises into a crescendo and then falls with a swoop at the end, and he will curse his tongue and mouth that can never say it right. She delights in saying it for him, and she will do it every time he asks. He will crow with delight, sing endless ballads to and for and about her, and he will find that he never wanted the armies and the wars in the first place, should he ever think on it. For that reason alone, love for Roland is to be desired.

* * *

Dawn will be bright in love, shining with it, beaming like the tiny sun that she is despite the problems that, in the beginning, loom on the horizon.  She will deflect her father's protests, she will state firmly and in no-nonsense fashion the things she needs to say to her beloved, but in the end she will be _happy_ with him, and light up the Fields with her joy.  Gone will be the searching stares, gone will be the worry for her sister, and the youngest Heir will be not only contented, but blissful.  Her hands will twine with her beloved's, and her heart will know true love and happiness, and if anyone deserves those things, it is the tiny blonde bundle of excitement that is Dawn.

* * *

 Sunny will know.  He will know how lucky he is, how wrongly things went (and how much more wrongly they might have gone), and how happy he is that it is all over.  He will not know exactly how hard Dawn fights for him, how she protects him fiercely from her father and her courtiers alike, how she fends off even her sister in order to take the time to figure things out.  No matter what he does (or doesn't) know, he will look at her like she is the center of the world (she is, for him), and he will sing and dance and joke every minute of every day if he can just keep that happy, loving smile on her face.  Of course, it will not exactly work that way, but after everything that Sunny sought and everything he obtained, he will have the acceptance he has been looking for since he was a toddler, and that is what is important in the end.

* * *

 The Fairy King will be plagued with doubts.  Doubts that he can keep the court together after the kinds of scandals that have gone on (and continue to go on), doubts that he can handle it all, doubts that he can hold it all together, doubts that Sunny is worthy of Dawn and that the Bog King is safe for Marianne, doubts that any heirs could come from the unions he sees before him.  And yet, as he stands in front of the assembled and marries first Dawn and Sunny (the more...accepted...couple) and then Marianne, to the Regent of the Dark Forest, something like love will well up inside him.  Some smile will ghost across his face, at times, a smile that he had once only smiled at the now-passed Queen of the Fields.  A tear will fall down his face and be brushed away, and he will know whose hands touch his face, and a great pain that once lived in the heart of the King will slowly begin to ease.

* * *

Griselda will be over the moon.  Her only son, finally married and _happy_ again, smiling at nothing at times, humming to himself now and again too.  Of course, he still mopes around too much for her liking, still skulks on occasion, but she can tell as only a mother can that his heart is lifted, that his sorrows are gone, and that simple and complex turning point has made her feel like a new woman.  She still scolds and nags at him, as is her right, but mostly she does it because she is still a mother and he is still her son.  She dreams of grandchildren and has tea with Dawn, but the horrific pain is gone from waiting, and so with a much lighter heart, she waits.

* * *

 The Bog King's heart, at last, will begin to feel something.  Something other than guilt and loneliness and pain will take up residence in the cavity of his carapace, some trickling feeling rising up from his rib-cage and into the heart that once drowned in the darkness of his own creation.  Everything will be glorious smiles and luminous plum-colored wings and tingle-inducing warm brown eyes.  The primroses will grow wild and thick again (though monitored carefully all the same), his new castle will rise strongly out of the loamy soil, and his mother will stop nagging so much as she used to.  The future will be all love and care and joyous acceptance, which is all he ever wanted in the first place.

* * *

And Marianne?  Marianne will find the sky newly soft in his eyes, find that she doesn't mind a rough exterior one bit, find that everything that has happened in the last year has brought her to these new moments, and she will find that this all she ever wanted in the first place.  He will accept her for who she is, he will protect her when she needs it and back off when she does not, he will hold her gently and cradle her with joy and admiration and not because he thinks of her as fragile or easily broken.  He will see her scars without flinching, scale her walls with ease, and doge the instinctive jabs that she will give without thought, barbed comments that would have driven others away.  He will be her world, be everything she once looked for in a lesser man, and the memories of pain will fade away and be gently buried, never to bother her or make her hurt again.

* * *

 

 

Sugar Plum sees all of this.  She sees the past with ease; she pierces the present with not much more effort; and she sees the future, too, and she knows without a doubt that the ends, in this case, will justify the means.  So she smiles a secretive smile and hums a secretive song, and she waits for an Elf named Sunny to beam his way into the Dark Forest's murky shadows.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roland  
> Dawn  
> Sunny  
> The Fairy King  
> Griselda  
> The Bog King  
> Marianne  
> Sugar Plum Fairy
> 
> Well, it is finally at an end! I had to finish this up, and I wanted to thank all of you who read and commented and gave kudos! It's something different in terms of style and I'm not sure I'll try it again, but there we are. :P Thank you all again! Your support means the world to me! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Roland  
> Marianne  
> Sunny  
> Dawn  
> The Fairy King  
> Griselda  
> The Bog King


End file.
